


The Piano

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Impromptu (1991)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-18
Updated: 2004-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:49:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1632410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for Deirdre Riordan</p>
    </blockquote>





	The Piano

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Deirdre Riordan

 

 

I'm M. Chopin's best companion. One might even say that I'm his lover. He seeks me out the very minute he opens his eyes to a new day, and it's I whom he sees last before he closes them against the night. To me he pours out his soul; through my well-tuned keys he gives form to his deepest, most inaccessible thoughts--yes, even that which he himself can't even fully comprehend. Through my well-tuned keys he tries to shed light on the deepest, most inaccessible corners of his heart.

For quite some time now, I've grown to be his most valued confidant, and I burst out in sound of the most intricate design when his hands touch me, his fingers running up and down my keys--lightly brushing, almost, very airy in the way they tease notes from my very depths. Then hammers strike the taut wires under my polished wood, and I sing for him, oftentimes bringing him to tears with my precise expression of what will remain hopelessly indefinable to him.

Most of the time, I turn out exquisitely poetic phrases of music, and I know that M. Chopin's doing rather well. The fluidity, the brightness, the sweetness of his creations become my own reality, and I'm swimming in his world, awash in wonder at the genius that shapes it.

"I look at the world, and I'm content," he says with his fingers and that faint smile of his--the one that looks distant and impenetrable, determined, it seems, to keep their reasons from seeing the light of day.

Lately, however, ever since his return from Angers, he's grown pensive and even a touch short-tempered--even more easily distracted from his compositions than before. The music to which he attempts to make me give voice has become disjointed and irregular in so many ways, and after several agonizing moments of forcing myself to sing to him, he finally gives up and stops. And there he'll sit, staring at my keys with a face pale and haunted for another moment that stretches far too long for comfort, and I'm left wondering what it was that had happened in that disastrous trip to Angers.

Judging from the conversations he's had with visiting friends, he and M. Liszt and the others have all been tossed out following a horrible altercation between them and their hosts. But I sense that there's more to it than that--and I know too well that M. Chopin had never been one of the guilty ones who'd provoked such a show of outrage from the Duke and Duchess d'Antan.

All the same, however, I do what I can to please him. I brave it out when his students appear and bumble their way through their lessons, unchecked, and they leave with an air of bewilderment and a piano practically sagging under the weight of all the aches to which it's just been subjected. Throughout their lessons, I watch M. Chopin stand by the window, looking out and wholly oblivious to his students' progress--communicating his vague approbation with a distracted air that everyone never fails to catch.

"Yes, yes, that was quite good--an improvement from last time," he says in that stammer and shyly gesturing hands that have endeared him to a number of people. He follows that with a bland smile and a genteel bow before turning politely away (as is his custom) while his students leave his money in the glass bowl before departing, all the while looking unconvinced and, in some cases, a touch irritated.

I've been wishing for M. Liszt to come and visit more often, for I know that of all people, _he'll_ know what to do to bring M. Chopin out of his current gloom.

That's saying something, of course. It's rather well-known among the furniture here in the conservatory that I barely escape with my life when M. Liszt visits--the man being excessively harsh in the way he handles me, a far, far cry from the more reverential touches I receive from M. Chopin. Having them play me solo is usually enough for me to know the difference, but duets tend to ground those differences home with greater force.

Their fingers traverse my keys, alternating in pressure and severity of expression, and I find myself hoping that M. Liszt tires out quickly enough, what with all the energy he places on his playing, and I'm left under my owner's gentler attentions.

Unfortunately for me, M. Chopin's health tends to get the better of him, and he's always the first to surrender his place for a miserable moment of relief, in which he turns away and coughs into his handkerchief, his thin figure practically breaking into two from the violence of his fits. And M. Liszt is left to molest me with that painful flamboyance of his--were I human, I'd be screaming for help the moment my owner pulls his hands away from my keys and stammers a polite excuse to remove himself from his friend's side--especially when that Hungarian madman gives me that _stare_ \--the one he uses before molesting me with his fury and those unnatural etudes and sonatas the moment he finds himself alone on the bench.

But I'll risk all that, of course, if it means having M. Chopin's black moods completely and permanently eradicated.

No, M. Liszt has never been my first choice, given what I suffer under his hands--literally. I've considered other artists--other members of my owner's circle--but all of them have come up short, and, in the case of M. Delacroix, my rejection of his capabilities as M. Chopin's confidant and comfort-giver lies largely in the frightening possibility of his chopping me up into pieces before lighting me on fire and then painting the carnage for one of his bloody exhibits. The man is mad, I tell myself time and again. Mad, mad, _mad_ \--a great artist, to be sure, but--mad.

Then there's this woman who seems to be Paris's scandal of the moment--a writer who calls herself George Sand and who prances about in men's clothes. No, I haven't met her, and I hope to God that I don't, for my owner turns cold and disdainful whenever her name pops up in conversation. I suppose there's no chance of my depending on her to lift my unhappy owner's spirits. Besides, if she dresses like a man, she's sure to be prone to do something unhealthy to a defenseless baby grand, and I'd sooner not discover what it might be.

These people are all mad, I say. I don't understand how my owner, for all his delicacy and breeding, is able to sustain himself in such a company.

And so on M. Liszt's shoulders I've laid the burden of my hopes.

Unfortunately for this poor, abused piano and its owner, M. Liszt's visits haven't been frequent as I understand that he has a mistress (a fallen woman, according to the divan, who's always been a terrible gossip-monger--though I'm quite sure that it can't help being a gossip since everyone sits on it when they come for visits) who's also impressively fecund. I believe she's brought in at least one child with her, and rumors are now flying of her being pregnant with more. At any rate, M. Liszt has his hands full with his scandalous connections as well as his work, and he simply can't spare as much time as I've hoped for his friend.

But a devoted instrument can only continue to hope, I suppose. To be sure, I've yet to see signs that would dash those same hopes and convince me to stop my moping and worrying.

Infrequent and brief though they might be, M. Liszt's visits have been exerting some wonderful influence on M. Chopin, especially after their exile from Angers. I can't help but suspect that injured pride has brought them together (being sensitive artists, after all), and they make very good use of what little time they have in each other's company since being booted out of their country retreat.

All I need to do is observe with a keen eye, and I feel my anxiety lift if only for a mere moment--while M. Liszt remains with my owner. The clouds _do_ lift the moment he appears at the door, greeting my owner with a loud hello, grinning and spreading his arms wide in loving welcome to a good friend. M. Chopin responds with a quieter, shyer salutation and a melancholy little smile, and he allows himself to be embraced with bone-breaking vigor. And fleeting though this might be, I note the way my ailing owner pinches his eyes shut while holding his friend tightly--as though he were suddenly assailed with a painful sensation (perhaps the embrace is crushing his fragile lungs) or perhaps a memory that overwhelms him. The way he pulls away from his friend is reluctant; it's all too clear in the way his hands linger on M. Liszt's arms, his fingers curling slightly as though determined to keep as strong a grip on the other man as they possibly can though they might know how fruitless it really is.

Their conversations tend to be light and, at times, dull, being filled with mostly accounts of their careers and concerts. But I see that M. Chopin delights in these talks, and though at times I find myself drifting off and being lulled to a tuneless stupor, I'm gratified by them.

I only need to see the way my owner's features light up when he urges his friend to share anecdotes to know that my suffering's worthwhile. His complexion, so lately pale and almost bloodless, picks up a faint, rosy flush, and he looks healthier than he's ever been in days (sometimes weeks). His eyes, dulled to a lifeless blue as of late, look animated and eager, and I've watched the way they tend to move over M. Liszt's figure as though searching and devouring what they see. I find that rather curious, and at one point I couldn't help but wonder if that happy, lingering gaze is one of adoration, but I shook it off.

M. Chopin's an honorable man. I daresay that he's likely to find it below him to yearn for another man, let alone his dear friend, who's happily settled with a mistress and their children. Besides, isn't it immoral for a man to love another? That's what the footstool tells me though I'll have to admit that it's known around here to be a bit of a sanctimonious prig, and other pieces of furniture have learned to ignore its tiresome sermons.

The two gentlemen often come up with little games that offer them so much amusement--lately they've been challenging each other into creating pieces (very short ones) that mimic abstract concepts. M. Liszt has demonstrated--very painfully, I might add--how God's wrath will sound on a piano. He's even pounded some of the more demoniacal elements of Nature into me.

But I endure torture after torture in his hands; after all, M. Chopin follows him with his exercises, and I'm once again soothed back to contentment, bursting with measures of the sweetest, saddest sounds imaginable, which sometimes reduces our brash guest to a thoughtful silence. I can't help but puff myself up in triumph whenever I catch sight of M. Liszt sitting on the divan across the room, leaning his head in his hand, his mind clearly drifting somewhere far, far from the present, his gaze fixed on M. Chopin, who remains oblivious to the attention he receives.

"There!" I crow jubilantly though he never hears me speak. " _That,_ monsieur, is how music ought to be played!"

They've explored so many themes--death, rebirth, ancient deities, madness (that, by the bye, has been a particularly frightening one), and so on. And it's almost amusing seeing the contrast between the two friends, for all the affection they harbor toward each other. The one on friendship, which tends to be a recurring theme, is especially fascinating to me because I'm not quite sure if both of them are even aware of the depth of their sentiments.

When M. Liszt performs his exercise, the confident, arrogant passion that has been his signature tends to shift to something less brazen and flamboyant. True, he still tortures me with those large hands of his, the unrestrained energy bursting out and practically destroying my keys. But at the same time, I detect a certain awkwardness in his playing--as though he were not much more than an overly enthusiastic schoolboy who's trying desperately to impress a formidable music tutor with his unpolished technique.

He fumbles a good deal though he's excessively clever at masking his odd, unexpected clumsiness. I'm not sure if M. Chopin notices, but my owner listens with the same rapt attention with which he always listens to his friend's more complete, more complicated pieces.

"Friendship," M. Liszt seems to say, "is valuable and has its place, restrictive though it can be."

When M. Chopin presents his exercises, he, too, fumbles though he plays with the same refinement with which he performs his other works. Like his friend, he seems to be reduced to a neophyte, and he answers M. Liszt's musical declarations with his quieter sentiments.

"Friendship can isolate as easily as it can unite disparity," he says. I feel every word with every touch of a finger against ivory, and I'm left a bit puzzled.

But both of them don't give me much of a chance to think over these sessions; once they're done showing off their respective skills, they're once again laughing and conversing breezily, and the game has moved on to something completely different. And I suppose I really shouldn't place too much weight on these brief moments of spontaneous play.

M. Chopin and M. Liszt are, after all, professionals--musicians of the highest caliber--and ought not to be degraded to clumsy, tongue-tied schoolboys in spite of all those little secrets they confide in me with their fingers. I suppose I should take pride in my unique place in their lives. I'm their most trusted confidant though they might not know it, and I hold the contents of their minds and hearts close, and even if someone were to tear me apart, hacking my polished wood to pieces, ripping the hammers, and cutting the wires, those secrets will remain hidden.

Then again, perhaps I'm also forcing something out of nothing, and that these spontaneous bursts of emotion truly mean nothing but a moment of friendly competition between two good friends. Perhaps I'm placing too much hope on these moments they share in each other's company for M. Chopin's sake.

I can't help it, after all. When M. Liszt takes his leave, the separation plunges the conservatory back to its usual pensive gloom, and the silence that falls over everything almost feels painful. M. Chopin sees his friend to the door, so I'm left alone in the room, and with the growing shadows of a waning day, I still see two geniuses moving about in animated conversation or sitting side-by-side on the bench, smiling and complementing each other's gift with its antithesis. To be sure, I can still feel M. Liszt's forceful fingers flying up and down my keys and M. Chopin's gentler ones trailing them--at times meeting them midway, and hands get tangled with each other, and the music stops abruptly while they laugh off an awkward moment.

After a while, M. Chopin returns to the conservatory and lights a few candles. When he takes his solitary place on the bench, I know that he's once again back to his brooding self, and I'm singing nocturnes for something (or someone?) that remains elusive to me.

All the same, even in the growing darkness, I can still catch sight of a trace of that brightness in his eyes, and that faint flush continues to dust his complexion though it fades along with the day. And I hope and pray that M. Liszt will make his next appearance soon--though it means another round of agonizing, torturous handling that makes me want to kick his shins if I only can. Hopefully I'll manage to get his foot stuck on my pedals if he overdoes it.

(fin)

 

 

 


End file.
